Once stagecoach stops, these restaurants and inns still welcome guests 150 years later

The Wade House in Greenbush was once a stagecoach stop and inn.(Photo: Brian E. Clark)

To say overland travel has changed in the last 175 years is a whopping understatement.

Imagine crawling at 4 miles per hour the next time you’re zipping down the freeway doing 70-plus. That’s how fast, or should I say slow, the stagecoach trudged at normal speed.

Connections to that time still exist for travelers in Wisconsin if you know where to look. A few noteworthy, locally owned and operated places remain that continue to offer hospitality to visitors no matter their form of transportation.

Storied pasts

One of those places still welcoming customers with sustenance and liquid refreshment is 1847 at the Stamm House, 6625 Century Ave., Middleton.

1847 at the Stamm House features one of the largest patios in Middleton.(Photo: Brian E. Clark)

A 2016 award recipient from the Madison Trust for Historic Preservation, the Stamm House was forlorn and foreclosed just six years ago.

“Nobody wanted it, including the City of Middleton, because it needed so much work,” said managing owner Troy Rost, who also runs a renovation company.

“It really was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to restore this building. Usually buildings like this are museums or have already been restored. I couldn’t believe that I had an opportunity to work on such a well-built, historic building,” he said.

It took Rost and his team about two years to reopen the Stamm House with the goal of preserving the original appearance while modernizing systems.

Built in 1847 to serve stagecoach traffic traveling from Milwaukee to Minneapolis on the Old Sauk Trail, it had been a store, hotel, grocer, community center, dancehall, supper club and possibly an Underground Railroad stop.

Now it is known as a laid-back restaurant with made-from-scratch food served with select wines, local brews and creative cocktails.

A 1910 postcard shows The Red Circle Inn in Nashotah with the “Pabst Milwaukee” round logo over the sign at left.(Photo: Wisconsin Historical Society)

“The Red Circle Inn was a stagecoach stop on the Watertown Plank Road between Milwaukee and Watertown,” said owner Norm Eckstaedt.

It is Wisconsin’s oldest restaurant, according to Eckstaedt, who purchased the restaurant in 1993 with his wife, Martha.

Opened in 1848 as the Nashotah Hotel, it became the Red Circle Inn in 1889 when beer baron Frederick Pabst renamed it after the brewery’s logo.

“Waukesha County Historical Society files list the Nashotah Hotel on an old stagecoach schedule from 1852,” Eckstaedt said.

Hold your horses

What were the early days of horse-powered travel like?

For starters, horses were changed out every 10 miles, which is something for modern-day travelers to ponder when stopping for gas every 500 miles. Scheduled routes were done in stages, hence the name stagecoach.

As for food, Eckstaedt said he’s unsure what was served at the Red Circle Inn back then, “but it was a spot that you could spend the night, get some food, board your horses and have your horses’ shoes fixed.”

At Wade House Historic Site, W7965 Highway 23, Greenbush, travelers can get a taste of stagecoach fare at the monthly Hearthside Dinners.

Both guests and staff prepare a 19th-century meal using a wood stove and open hearth, according to Mary Whitehurst Burkey of the Wade House.

“Of course, the part that everyone enjoys most is sitting down to eat together, and it’s always amazing how a group of strangers really comes together after preparing a meal collaboratively,” she said.

Participants prepare their hearth-cooked meal with their own hands in the Wade House stagecoach hotel.(Photo: Courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society)

In Wisconsin, some stage lines continued until the 1920s.

It was a common form of travel in the Midwest and western U.S., according to Jim Willaert, curator at the Wade House. Throughout the state, stage travel was comfortable for the standards of the time, passing over mostly dirt roads that could be bumpy, he said.

“Riding the stagecoach was as safe as any other method of travel at the time. Movies often show the stagecoach being robbed. That was not a big problem in Wisconsin,” Willaert said.

Stagecoach travel was also relatively expensive compared to the railroad. Willaert said the stage ride from Sheboygan to Fond du Lac in the mid-19th century cost about $2 per person. The same trip on the train cost only about 25 cents.

Wood stove to cheese curds

“Built in 1853 as an actual stagecoach stop between Milwaukee and Green Bay, the Inn boasts nine unique, cozy and well-maintained rooms appointed with period antiques, comfortable beds and private baths,” according to owner Anne Conley.

Guests can park their cars and hoof it to restaurants, shops, brew pubs, wineries and cultural events.

The Stagecoach Inn also operates a pub called the five20 Social Stop that welcomes both guests and the public as a place to unwind from 4 to 10 p.m. Live music is featured some nights, along with guests joining in at times for impromptu fun.

In the Green Bay area, locals recommend former stagecoach stop The Settlement for generous servings of classic tavern food, including a popular Friday fish fry, at bargain prices.

The tavern is in Bay Settlement, an unincorporated area on Green Bay’s east side that dates to 1830.

A beloved landmark at 3254 Bay Settlement Road, The Settlement originally opened in 1883 as the Neville Hotel and was a stagecoach stop along the Green Bay to Sturgeon Bay route until the turn of the 20th century, according to Dennis Jacobs, local history associate at the Brown County Library.

“They have really good cheese curds and very good burgers,” said Jacobs, who grew up in Bay Settlement. “It’s awesome.”

Jennifer Rude Klett is a Wisconsin freelance writer of history, food, and Midwestern life. Contact her at jrudeklett.com.